Elon Musk is moving SpaceX out of Delaware after a judge there nixed his Tesla pay package

Musk filed to reincorporate the aerospace company to Texas from Delaware following an unfavorable ruling from a state judge

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk
Elon Musk is the founder and CEO of the aerospace company SpaceX.
Image: Tingshu Wang (Reuters)

SpaceX is the latest company that billionaire Elon Musk has shuffled around the country after disagreeing with local authorities.

Musk posted Wednesday (Feb. 14) on the social media platform he owns, X, that he has filed to move the incorporation of the aerospace company to Texas from the typically business-friendly Delaware.

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“SpaceX has moved its state of incorporation from Delaware to Texas!,” Musk wrote in the post, along with an image of the certificate of conversion. “If your company is still incorporated in Delaware, I recommend moving to another state as soon as possible.”

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The news comes less than a month after a Delaware court ruling voided his $56 billion executive compensation package from Tesla.

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Delaware chancery court judge Kathaleen McCormick ruled on Jan. 30 that the “process leading to the approval of Musk’s compensation plan was deeply flawed” and was unfair to shareholders. The 2018 package, the largest in history, awarded Musk’s 20.3 million stock options over 12 installments and was valued as high as $55.8 billion at the time. It helped make him the richest person in the world.

Musk took to X soon after the ruling to criticize the decision and threatened to move Tesla’s incorporation from Delaware as well. On Feb. 1, Must posted on X that Tesla’s shareholders would hold a vote on the potential move to Texas. However, reincorporating Tesla would be more challenging since it is a publicly-traded company.

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In related news, a SpaceX rocket successfully launched a lunar space craft today that is expected to land on the moon on Feb. 22.

Other Musk companies that have moved states

This marks yet another instance of a Musk-owned company being reincorporated or relocated at his whim.

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Neuralink, Musk’s brain implant company, moved its state of incorporation to Nevada from Delaware last week.

In 2021, Musk moved Tesla’s headquarters to Austin, Texas from California after criticizing the state’s covid policies that forced the EV-maker to pause production at one of its factories—though its state of incorporation remained Delaware.